Wisdom from the Source
Rev. Richard A. Bolland

Proverbs 9:8-12
(September 19, 2004 Sermon Transcript)

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        From the Old Testament reading, the text. Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning. "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. For through me your days will be many, and years will be added to your life. If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you; if you are a mocker, you alone will suffer."

        There can be very little doubt, I think, in any of our minds that the religion of Christianity divides people from one another. Either your faith is in Christ alone for salvation, or it is not. There is no one in between, there is no neutral ground of any kind!

        I would suggest that your presence here in this sanctuary this morning is witness that you have been called by God through the gracious waters of Holy Baptism, marked and washed clean of your sins, and that, because of His gracious work in your lives, you are here because of the hunger He has given you to learn more about the one who has made us, who has redeemed us, and who continues to preserve us now and forever.

        As sinful human beings, we know that we have no proper business before the holy, almighty and gracious God of all the universe, were it not for the grace of God given us through the sacrifice, death, and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ. This willing acknowledgment of our unfitness before the throne of grace apart from Christ is exactly the beginning of wisdom that this text describes. And it is this spiritual wisdom that leads, then, to the reception of more and more and more wisdom with which God blesses us through His word and sacrament throughout the course of this life.

        This means, dear friends, that you are not, you are not, a mocker of God, but a wise man, a wise woman, a wise boy, or a wise girl. This is the gift of God’s grace to you. This fear of God means that you are God’s person now and forever. And He has begun a good work in you, and as St. Paul writes, He will continue to perfect that good work in you until the day of His coming.

        It is, however, true that it is not so for all. I think we need to be honest about that. Those who do not hold the one true religion of Christ are, by nature, mockers of God. It can be no other way. Since the true source of spiritual wisdom is unknown to them, they are forced to seek wisdom from sources in which there is no spiritual wisdom.

        Now, I know that in today’s culture that is certainly not popular, that kind of thinking. To even suggest that there is one true religion is to seem out of step in our world. And indeed, I would suggest that we are! And right so. It seems our world will worship, rather, at the altar of tolerance of all things with respect to religions.

        Indeed, it would seem that the false religions of this world would insist that all religious ideas, all concepts of God, all notions of spirituality should and ought to have equal validity in the eyes of everyone. And so we are counter-cultural when we, as Christian, stand and say, "In Christ alone there is grace. In Christ alone there is salvation. That there is no other name under heaven by which we may be saved."

        And so, you can be assured, if you have not yet realized it, that the epitaphs will start flying. We are described then, as religious bigots. Or perhaps responsible for religious violence from everything from the crusades to the spanish inquisition, to, perhaps, even the war in Iraq. And what’s more, we are lacking in love, we are arrogant, we are rude, we are judgmental!

        Get used to it!

        This worldly wisdom mocks God because it does not recognize His authority to speak the truth. It does not recognize His authority to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Not even God, in this world, is permitted to instruct men. His own wisdom must be validated, it seems. And not even the Creator is permitted to teach man anything that is any different than what we think is right.

        My very well-worn Webster’s New World Dictionary describes the word mock in this way. "To hold up to scorn or contempt, to ridicule, to defy and to make futile." Once again, Webster gets it right! He usually does, interestingly enough, enough in theological terms. Whenever men listen to their own wisdom, grounded in sin, they become, by definition, mockers of God, who alone is the truth, and who alone is the sole source of truth and all wisdom.

        This text absolutely forces us to recognize a very hard reality. All religions apart from Christ are guilty of mocking God. And again, there can be no other way. Religion is not a matter of personal preference, but it is a choice that God enables us to make, in which we will be led to life eternal or to death eternal. This is no game we are playing here. This is no game which is being played out on this planet. It is not a matter of whatever you decide is right is right, for the stakes are eternal life in heaven or eternal punishment in hell. That’s serious business.

        Let me say this. What is needed by mankind everywhere, and by us in particular, is not a personal preference, but a source of real reliable truth and wisdom. I would suggest that there is one and only one source of this precious commodity, and our text spelled it out for us with utter clarity. And He gave it for us to hear, and for all the world to hear, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

        Until and unless a man listens to God he will always and only be a fool and a mocker of God. Until and unless a man seeks after this divine wisdom, he will never know true wisdom at all.

        Now, where then do we find true wisdom? True wisdom is God Himself, in His flesh, and, I would suggest, also in His Word. In fact, I find it utterly impossible to make any distinction between the person of Jesus Christ, who is God in human flesh and the word which He speaks, and the truth which He reveals. God cannot be so easily divided. God can not be so easily dissected. For when He speaks, He gives utterance to who He is, and vice versa. God does not merely possess the attribute of wisdom. He is wisdom itself. Indeed, any true wisdom that exists in this world is an expression of the wisdom of God. He has a corner, if you will, on the wisdom market. And so, whenever we see that which is truly wise, we are seeing something that God has revealed.

        True wisdom never seeks self-will. It never, under any circumstances, is interested in self-sufficiency, but is constantly making God and His highest and binding purpose in our lives highest and binding on us as well. The right fear of God is indeed the beginning of God’s gracious and continuous unfolding of His wisdom throughout the course of our lives, for people who understand there status before God only in Christ Jesus.

        Dear friends, when the human will seeks only the wisdom of God, it is provided in abundance. And the source of it is in His word and in His sacraments. In John we read in chapter 15 these words of our Lord. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit-- fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.

        I would suggest that to gaze upon the face of Jesus Christ is to behold wisdom itself. For it is indeed true that the greatest expression of divine wisdom is precisely His son. Phillip said, in John 14, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

        The greatest expression of divine wisdom that the world has ever witnessed is not merely the face of Jesus Christ, but to behold that face and His body nailed to a Roman cross of execution.

        And the world’s form of wisdom is repelled by this notion. "How can this be wise, to be executed?" Especially if you have done nothing wrong. But through the things that the world considers foolish, God exposes the true nature of His wisdom. For in the life, the suffering, and death of His son, we find life.

        Who would have thought that God would come and take on human flesh? Who would have conceived of it? That God would love these fallen human beings, you and I, so much, that He would allow His hands to be pierced with nails, His feet to be hammered to a cross. That He would allow His life to end. That He would permit the Father’s love to be turned away from His Son, who, in the agony of the cross, suffers the eternal punishment that was due us. This is the glory of God and His wisdom.

        Dear friends, it is a gift that He gives us, this thing called life, this thing called faith, this ability to believe. For the glory of the Father is the Son, and the glory of the Son is His suffering and death, and those scars.

        In our Lutheran Hymnal, Hymn 15 verse 3 (a glorious hymn, one of my favorites), the third verse reads this way. "Those dear tokens of His passion, still His dazzling body bears. Cause of endless exaltation to His ransomed worshippers. With what rapture gaze beyond those glorious scars."

        And he’s not talking about the cross, he’s talking about the Christ as He returns in judgment to rule in heaven forever. Have you a doubt? Listen to the words of Revelation that describes the very thing the song sings about. In Revelation chapter 5, Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders.

        Those scars, those scars, are His glory, and are an expression of the wisdom of God. For in them, we find life and we find redemption. And what’s more, we too finally shall be expressions of the divine wisdom. Now we are imperfectly. Now we describe our life in this word in the Latin, simul justus et pecator, "at the same time sinner and saint".

        We are a mixed lot, aren’t we? We know we have been washed clean in the waters of forgiveness of Holy Baptism. And He continues to sustain our faith and strengthen our faith through the preaching of His word, and the coming and tasting of the wisdom of God as we receive Christ Himself, His very body and blood, with the bread and the wine of this supper which we are about to experience and know.

        Again, we are also sinners. Daily we struggle with sin. And were it not so, we would not bother to confess them at the beginning of each service, as we did today.

        And so, we struggle in this world. But there will come a time when that struggle is over. Finally sanctified, finally perfected, robed in the righteousness of Christ Himself, we shall stand in the presence of God, and that without fear. For there will be no fear left.

        And what’s more, though we know Him now through these means of grace, and grow in that faith through these means of grace, then we shall know Him apart from faith. For faith is that which we believe apart from understanding, and apart from seeing. But then, we shall know Him face to face, and we see the reality of our Christ, and of the wisdom of God.

        And what’s more, we shall be part of that very expression of His wisdom.

        So having been washed in Holy Baptism, having been sealed for the life which is to come, we wait. We wait in the imperfections of this life. We come forward to receive shortly the precious foretaste of the feast which is to come, in which God Himself will come and serve us at the table of the eternal banquet.

        Yes, yes, there is the faith of the one true wisdom of the one true religion. And that is precisely because it is the religion of the one who is the true Christ of God. It is the wisdom of the one alone who was crucified, and suffered for our sins. It is the faith of the one alone who rose from the dead so that we too might also rise and know eternal life, and the eternal wisdom of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in whose name we conclude. Amen.